Between 1980 and 2022, anywhere between 35 and 50 percent of annual homicides in the United States happened between people with a known relationship to one another. And only recently has it become common knowledge that the majority of sexual assault victims in the US are attacked by someone they know.
The point? It be ya own people. Perhaps an American is more dangerous to you as an acquaintance or a friend than they would be as a stranger. What a weird thought. Eerily enough, it could be accurate.
Are you safe? When and where are you safe in America?
Physically, mentally, and emotionally, we can be assaulted at every turn throughout a day.
In a car-dependent country full of “rugged individuals” (i.e. selfish assholes), driving to and from work is treacherous.
In an economy where everything must get bigger or die, you are not safe from exploitation of your “rockstar” employee status in a “fast-paced” environment.
And at home you find it hard to protect your peace of mind from invasive messages preying on your insecurities, telling you to buy something you don’t need with money you don’t have to solve problems someone made you think you have. Perhaps your teeth are not porcelain white, your watch is fake, and you still have the iPhone with a headphone jack. There’s nothing wrong with you.
I didn’t even talk about the guns! Or the drugs! Or the nasty ass tap water! (My beloved Minneapolis is an exception here, #GiveFlintWater #GiveJacksonWater.)
“Safe?” by Zander, an American is out on all digital streaming platforms. Music video and streaming links below:
Stream “Safe?” by Zander, an American on your platform of choice
As 20-year-old underground sensation OsamaSon smoothly rapped “I got sticks on me, don’t you end up in a ditch” in the video for his latest single “popstar,” a quote hung at the bottom of the screen which read, “our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents never had time to acknowledge.” This lightly-paraphrased quip from the 2010 romantic dramedy Beginners is one of the simpler and milder of dozens of angsty messages flashing across the screen in the video’s 103-second run time.
Walls of confessional text set on colorful backgrounds and styled with bedroom graphic design tricks (e.g. torn notebook paper details, collage) visually pepper the listener while their ears also experience overstimulation from “popstar”‘s hyper cloud rap production. OsamaSon’s flow is adept, but only a few conventional one-liners seem to cut through the surrounding madness.
Firstly, kudos to OsamaSon for making an experience out of what could easily just be another sub-two-minute post-SoundCloud banger. What is there to make of this brief, chaotic experience?
Vulnerability appears to leap out of Gen Z in surprise bursts. Today’s kids and young adults pushing pop culture toward its next form are not nearly as bottled up as their grandparents and not as performative as their parents and older peers. But they are chronically online in a way no one before them was. If the resonance of “popstar” says anything — proven by a lively, grateful comment section and public support from celebrity streamer Kai Cenat — it seems to say people are ready to talk about their suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and fear … just as long as they talk at someone and not with them.
The response to “popstar” thus far says Gen Z can process anything if it’s in a tell-all post, recorded monologue, or curated set of images. But in much the same way “popstar,” the song, completely contradicts the shit happening in “popstar,” the video, Gen Z Americans — and the rest of us, really — seem comfortable going along with the way things are as long as we periodically purge our most deep-seated feelings and cries for help.
We seem to know very well what is wrong with us and around us, can articulate it, but can’t stand to do it with other people without shutting down or blowing up. Our bravest and truest selves, then, are not reserved to be shared heart to heart, rather screen to screen — only within content can you fully exist. A Snap story, your friend’s podcast, a finsta account, anything to freely express ourselves online so it never has to happen irl. Or is real life online now?
OsamaSon’s quarter-life crisis is no longer unique on an individual level, but there is still a lot about Gen Z’s coming-of-age experience that requires unpacking if we care about righting collective wrongs. The chart-topping and viral musical works of our day remain upbeat, self-absorbed, and escapist despite so many people feeling down, longing for connection, and looking to solve their issues rather than run from them. While artists, especially rappers, play a role in pop music’s numbing effect on the masses, they’re also the only people willing to be candid about what’s going on in front of millions of people at a time.
If OsamaSon’s most vulnerable art to date is this motion Tumblr blog of a music video, I’ll take it. Seems like a lot of young listeners already have.
UPDATE 8/27/2024: Edited to include information about streamer Kai Cenat’s role in promoting Osamason
I love life. Not just my life, life itself. So I love death like a real lover appreciates their thick wife’s cellulite: it makes her real, not flawed. You can spend your whole life staring at the thing, minimizing it, being ashamed of it, or desperately trying to make it go away. But there’s nothing happier than a life lived with acceptance of it.
I don’t know how to transcend into the spiritual plane. I don’t meditate, I haven’t had an eye-opening psychedelic trip, nor a near-death experience. But I know writing is like breathing for me, and dropping music is like virgin birth.
I know I feel responsible for informing you, even when I want nothing to do with you. I know the more things change around me, the more sure I am some permanent spark of a thing is “me” inside of my body. And I’m proud I gave other little sparks chances at this life with their own bodies (i.e. my kids). And I’d give my body for theirs to continue.
There’s a lot I feel compelled to do while I’m in this body. Compulsions that say, “Think about it, but I know the right answer,” like the smiling grandparent just waiting for you to get it. And when I consider a life guided by these unchanging urges, I don’t know what else is better. I don’t know what else there is after that except death — mission complete! You lived.
Reincarnation, nirvana, heaven, hell, purgatory, and nothingness all have their validity. I’m not against any of these views of life after death. But no matter what reward or lack thereof awaits us, the present is a … !
As far as I can tell, knowing how to live is knowing how to die. True to self, tidy conscience, seeing all things physical as the reflection of all things spiritual. It usually doesn’t take long for me to learn a lesson, and I’ve changed a number of times to ensure that bright burn in my gut and cool breeze in my mind feel the same.
There are so many things I want to see myself accomplish, but lately it’s been clear the goal is the journey. I did it, I’ll do it.
